WritingPrompts

Small description of the writing prompt that was done that day.

June 6th - Patrick - Working with Genres 1. On a sheet of paper, write down 2 characters, a genre, and a setting. 2. Rip the paper into the 3 Sections: Character, Genre, Setting. 3. Collect each type of paper. 4. Random draw from each Section. 5. Write a piece based on what you drew.

June 7th - Adrienne - Take a photo from magazines (or draw) and have that be the opening to a story - focus on actions in the picture, props, etc.

June 8th - Nancy - Viewing old family photos to get people thinking about their roots and how their families have lived over the generations.

June 9th - Micki - Make a list of things that bother you, then pick one and write about it.

June 13th - Monica - Think about a good piece of advice that you've gotten from someone and write a story centering around who told it to you, what they said, when they said it, where they said it, and how you applied it to your life.

June 14th - Brett - Picture of an outhouse. "What would you go into the outhouse for?" June 15th - Dawn -

June 16th - Micki - Micki showed us a picture of a Butterfly and we went where that took us.

Butterfly Group: Meg Metaphors we draw between the metamorphosis of a butterflyand our own personal growth or life paths stand as powerful symbols to those willing to investigate and commit to the page, our deepest thoughts or feelings concerning personal history. Seeing myself as a caterpillar or chrysalis proved helpful as a member of a group of women at church years ago. The church bulletin invitation promised a safe environment, a gathering of self-selected fellow caterpillars, and an ongoing opportunity to reflect upon where we currently saw ourselves in our life journey. We arrived timidly, as one does to an initial AA meeting, self-convicted by merely walking through the door and taking a seat. To this day, I recall the surprise mingled with hope, as women for whom I had great respect and affection continued to enter the room. “You?” “ Why are you here?” “I see you as having it all together.” we responded to one another. A clergy woman and family therapist led our journeys through the darkest, most wounded parts of ourselves, to confront our fears, demons, and ghosts. They provided healing role play and writing exercises to cleans us from our stains, and devotions for the faith to heal. We called ourselves, The Butterfly Group, once we felt comfortable with the process and trusted that true healing and self acceptance were at the end of the journey in this unique group. June 20th - Michele - We filled out the following sheet for a character by filling in one characteristic, passing it to the next person, and repeating.

June 21st - Rachel - Rachel shared a beautiful slide show containing the text for Miranda Lambert's song, "The House That Built Me." We wrote about the influences that built our houses.

At some point, we were prompted to write about what we would gather and take to safety from flood or tornado: What do I schlep to the basement to safety? Meg Generally, when ominous weather approaches, our Wichitaweather teams alert us with radar and specific information giving citizensenough lead time to move most of our valuables from the upper two floors downto the relative safety of our basement ‘fraidy hole. If I am home when tornadosirens sound, I grab my purse, our old-fart medications, our lockbox, mom’sjewelry, 2 laptops, and if there is time, both pc towers, obviously thisrequires several trips up and down the basement stairs, so lead time isnecessary. My purse contains the vital cell phone, mp3player, and wallet withidentification and credit cards. The lock box houses living wills, and otherdocuments that haven’t yet made it to the safe deposit box at the local bank aswell as the key to the safe deposit box. Mom’s jewelry is purely sentimental,however the computer hardware is quite literally everything financial andprecious to our family, in photos, and documents generated through the decadesby each family member. If time allows, I return for the cd collection, takingour son’s bands music first, then the praise and worship, rock and Motown,classical, and children’s music. As a grade school child, my most precious possession was myLamb Chops plush toy and all of her friends and relations as represented in afurry menagerie of animals numbering in the twenties. They fired my imaginationwith their collective and separate adventures inside and outside the house andat the farm. When my school marks were unacceptable, my grandmother would takeLamb Chops away and put her in the china cabinet until the next report card wasissued. It was meant to motivate, but in truth, only reinforced that I washopelessly stupid and in general, a failure at school. Thank the Lord forsummers, when Lamb Chops and I were reunited by default. As a fifth grader, the black leather cased transistor radio,which my father had mailed to me for my birthday, was my prized possession. Itlulled me to sleep at night and went with me everywhere, on my bike, in thecar, everywhere except school. As a teen-age girl, my juice-can-sized-brush-hair rollers,pink plastic anchor pins, Dippity-Do jar, hair brush and portable hairdryerwith hose and bonnet, would have been the thing I’d guard with my life. EVeything changed when my children were born. ran out of time to write more.

The Veldt byRay Bradbury One pager by meg Patrick, I'll email this to you also as a word doc. and hope the images show up on that. Upon reading this story, the lyric from Ian Brown’s song, “In The Year 2525” repeatedly sounded in my mind’s ear. “In the year 5555, your arms will be hanging limp at your sides. Your legs got nothing to do, some machine’s doing that for you.” I was struck by the reality that much about which that song forewarned has indeed come into being through man’s endeavors to ease the word of living as we know it. My mind then turned to an NPR radio story I heard last spring concerning the loss of face to face conversation as it has in many cases been replaced with email, instant messaging, texting, FB, twitter and on and on. The demise of direct human contact and skill in human relationships were proposed as candidate to consider for addition to a list of endangered social skills. The following quote jumped off the page as it was read aloud, and I knew that Ray Bradbury had voiced the same warning years ago when he wrote: “You’ve letthis room, and this house, replace you and your wife in your children’saffections. This room is their mother and father, far more important in theirlives than their real parents. And now you come along and want to shut it off.No wonder there is hatred in here.”

The NPR radio story cautioned listeners to safeguard their face to face connections with family and friends and let technology serve rather than come to own our lives. The similarity to Bradbury’s directive, as voiced by the psychologist,is telling: “George,you’ll have to change your life.”

The warningis clear. Change or evolve into a disbanded society of lone individuals whor elate to hardware and software rather than one another. We began physically together, yet apart online. Our computers spoke to one another, as we gave up our voices to text in the ether. We found too late we’d been silenced by machines, disconnected by their allure and appeal. Could it come to pass? We have a choice.